This invention relates to a high-speed stranding machine with at least one spool carrier held in floating bearings, prevented from rotating together with the rotor, inside which it is located, by an unbalanced weight. With these machines, known for example from the German Letters Patent DT-PS No. 23 37 305, the rotor is driven at high speeds. A wire runs off from every spool inside the rotor, the spools being supported so they can rotate by the spool carrier which itself is not rotating together with the rotor. The wires from all spools of the machine are led out of the rotor to the point of combination and are stranded there by the rotation of the rotor.
In order to ensure that the spool carrier will not rotate together with the rotor, it is, with the machines known, designed asymmetrical, so that its center of gravity will be located below its axis of rotation. Thus, its position during normal operation will be stable and it will just swing lightly to and fro. In case of the swinging becoming too large, a so-called swing safety will cause emergency braking and shutting-down of the machine.
It is also known how to arrange the position of the spool below the axis of rotation of the spool carrier, this in order to prevent the spod carrier from co-rotating.
Yet, malfunctioning during operations, when the spool carrier may come into rotation, cannot be eliminated altogether. An acceleration of the spool carrier may be caused by a defective spool-carrier bearing, by a broken wire or by a wire that has become wedged between the spool carrier and the rotor. The speed of rotation which the spool carrier will reach, depends upon the ratio of the momentum of inertia of the rotor to that of the spool carrier with spool, upon the braking time and upon the torque generated between rotor and spool carrier when, for instance, seizure occurs in a bearing. If such a torque is very high (magnitude of 10,000 N.m), acceleration will be so high that the spool carrier will approximately reach the full rotor speed, although the swing safety will respond correctly. Very high stresses by the centrifugal forces will result as a consequence and will be transmitted, via the spool carrier bearings onto the rotor, the rotor supports and the foundation which may be damaged or destroyed within fractions of a second. A rotor supported by trunnion rollers would be lifted from these rollers. The centrifugal force acting upon the locking parts of the spool carriers may be of such magnitude that the lock will open; the spool would then fly out. The stress exerted upon the spool-carrier wall by the centrifugal force resulting from its own weight and from the spool which is unevenly wound and displaced from the center, may be so large that with customary spool holders, the bending stress will be higher than the breaking limit.